Michigan commission moves ahead with proposal for public defender standards

A Michigan agency is seeking public comment on a recommendation creating uniform standards for public defenders in the state.

The 15-member Michigan Indigent Defense Commission created the proposal. The standards include better education and training for attorneys and mandatory interviews with defendants, along with other practices that improve legal service.

Commission Chair James Fisher says that these recommendations are necessary to improve a Michigan public defense system that, in his eyes, is failing and inconsistent in too many areas.

"Part of the criticism of Michigan's system up to this point has been that there are no standards," he says. "You have some places where the counties or municipalities may be doing a very good job at providing these services, in other areas they are quite deficient."

Fisher also believes that creating statewide guidelines will increase the amount of state funding counties will receive in order to meet them.

"The legislation anticipates that the state will start participating in a major way to defray the costs of these services and upgrading them to a more reasonable level," he says.

The Commission anticipates that these initial proposals should face little opposition, however it hopes to later expand them to include more controversial topics such as minimum attorney pay and case load limits.

A previous version of this story said the state Legislature would have to approve the changes the commission is recommending. That is incorrect.

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Governor Rick Snyder signed legislation Monday that will make sweeping changes to the state’s public defense system.

Snyder says the new law is a big step toward making sure fewer indigent criminal defendants are wrongfully convicted. It will create a commission to set statewide standards for public defense. The group will also monitor counties to make sure each one is meeting those standards.

The governor says there’s still a lot of work to do before the state can expect to see improvements. He said, “It will take some time to implement this. But this is something we will be very diligent about the follow-through to make sure it happens right.”

The bills passed the state House and Senate last month with bi-partisan support.

Prisoners in Michigan serve longer sentences than in any other state. That's according to a recent Pew study, which finds lengthy sentences have bloated the state's corrections budget. Michigan spends more than two billion dollars a year on prisons.